Criminal Justice and Public Policy Final Exam

What are the Four instances leading to the Victims’ Rights Movement?

The development of “victimology”, The rise of crime in the 1960s and 1970s, The rise of feminist movements, and The growth of victim activism

What was the Role of Victims during the Colonial Period?

This was before the rise of public prosecutors, law enforcement was minimum so victims initiated prosecution, gathered evidence, and were primarily responsible for seeking justice

What was the Role of Victims after the shift to Public Prosecutors?

By the early 20^th century, almost all U.S. states had formalized public prosecution. Victim’s roles were largely reduced to being witnesses in cases prosecuted by the state. The victim was a passive witness, and the state became the sole “victim” in legal terms

What was the Federal Legislation that established Rights for Victims in federal courts?

2004—The Crime Victim’s Rights Act

What were Criticisms of Victim Involvement in Punishment?

1) Inconsistency with principles of justice: critics argue that elevating victim voice can undermine the neutrality and objectivity of criminal punishment

2) Burdens the CJS: it is a whole other group to involve, there’s a lot of work that goes into notifying victims and making sure they are informed. It is time-consuming, might slow things own.

3) Undermines utilitarian goals of punishment: crime reducing effects of punishment, we might not be centering deterrence or rehabilitation if we allow victims to be involved

What was Payne v. Tennessee (1991)?

Supreme court ruled that victim impact statements are constitutional in death penalty cases

What were the Provisions of Marsy’s Law?

-Notification and participation rights

-Protection from offender

-Input on bail, sentencing, and parole

-Legal standing and enforcement

What was Roberts (2009) argument about victim input in Sentencing v. Parole?

Roberts argues that victim input makes more sense at sentencing because judges can legitimately consider the harm caused by the crime. It is fundamentally different to consider victim statements in sentencing and parole because different factors are considered in each. Sentencing considers how bad the crime was and whether the individual will recidivate, etc., while Parole considers how much an individual had changed, the time they have served, etc. Authors argue it is more clear why victim statements would matter in sentencing, but less clear at the parole stage. However, it seems to not affect sentencing, and to affect parole

What is Punitive Victim Influence?

Allowing victims to influence punishment factors directly

What is Nonpunitive Victim Influence?

Allowing victims to be heard and describe the effects, but not allow them to weigh in on punishment decisions

What is Wemmer’s (2009) Framework of Restorative Justice?

Victims will never be fully recognized in the criminal justice process, and they are better off in restorative justice programs. It reviews restorative justice literature and finds three different frameworks: Abolitionism, Add restorative justice practices to criminal justice, Integrate restorative justice values in the criminal justice system

What is Wemmer’s (2009) Abolitionism Framework of Restorative Justice?

It does not argue that we shouldn’t hold offenders accountable at all, it argues victims should have ownership over the offense rather than the state. This means treating criminal offenses in a civil manner

What is Roberts (2009) view on the Effects of Victim Impact Statements on Victims?

Victim Impact statements can help victims by giving them a chance to explain how the crime affected them and feel heard in court. Roberts says many victims who submitted a statement felt positive about doing so and said they would do it again. However, some victims feel disappointed when they expect the statement to strongly affect sentencing, and confusion about how the statement is used can limit its benefits

When do we use Cost-effectiveness Evaluation?

When we have one outcome that we are interested in, but we have multiple strategies for that one outcome. It asks what is the best use of resources

What are the two main pieces of information needed for Cost-Effectiveness Evaluation?

The cost of implementing it at some known scale, The effect size from prior evaluations at that same scale

What is the Outcome Metric of Cost-effectiveness?

Cost-per-outcome

What is a cost-benefit evaluation?

Assigns monetary value to all costs and outcomes to get a “net benefit”. It is helpful when we have multiple goals and want to know where we can make the largest impact

What are the Steps of Cost-Benefit Evaluation?

1) State the policy question

2) Identify the perspective of analysis

3) Identify all relevant costs and benefits

4) Assign values to costs and benefits

5) Compare the costs and benefits of one or more policies

6) Assess sensitivity of the results to critical assumptions and detail all relevant assumptions and limitations

Why is it important to determine the perspective of analysis?

The chosen perspective dictates what gets counted as a cost versus benefit. There is no single “correct” perspective, but analysts must state it explicitly because results can change substantially when the perspective changes

What are Marginal Costs?

Costs added by producing an additional unit; expanding or using that policy or program more

What are Indirect Costs?

Costs that are the policy’s spillovers, by-products, or externalities

What are Intangible Costs?

Intangible costs are the feelings or things that are not easy to monetize (like sense of safety), Tangible costs have a clear market value and are easy to monetize.

What is a Willingness-to-pay Approach?

A survey strategy asking people how much they would pay to reduce the chances of experiencing something

What are Discount Rats?

The rate you use to convert future costs and benefits into today’s dollars, because money today is worth more than money later

What is the Information Incorporated into QALY?

The amount of years (how long) someone lives, and their health state during those years. If you live one year at half the quality of perfect health, you would have 0.5 QALY

What was the main result from Welsh (2015)?

Crime prevention programs seem to be worth the investment. It was found that developmental programs were seen to be the most efficient and provided the most benefit-cost ratio. The benefits for situational crime prevention programs were really limited to crime mostly or things that would occur from crime, whereas developmental prevention programs were associated with a broader range of outcomes

What was Welsh et al. 2015 Perry Preschool Program?

The Perry Preschool Program was a 2-year preschool and weekly home-visit program for 123 low-income children, ages 3-4 in Michigan. By age 40, people who had been in the program had fewer arrests, and they were also less likely to be arrested five or more times. They also had better life outcomes of graduation, employment, and income.

What was Mears Chapter 8 Case Study on Community Policing?

Community policing grew as an alternative to traditional reactive policing. It was supposed to reduce crime by building stronger partnerships between police and residents, while improving order, safety, trust, and satisfaction with police. But he argues there is very little solid evidence showing whether it is actually cost-efficient, because research on its outcomes is limited and implementation varies a lot from place to place

What was Mears Chapter 8 Case Study on Private Prisons?

Private prisons expanded because supporters believed they could provide the same or better services for less money than public prisons. However, he argues that the evidence is still unclear. Some studies say private prisons are no more efficient, a few say they may be slightly more efficient, but overall the research is too weak and inconsistent to make a strong conclusion

What are the Origins and Expansion of Collateral Consequences?

American colonies imported the concept of “civil death” from English Common Law. Collateral consequences became less severe over time, particularly in the 1960s and 70s, and then expanded dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s

What was the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA)?

Federal legislation that allowed or required denial of certain public benefits, including TANF and SNAP, for people convicted of certain dug felonies

What was Megan’s Law (1994)?

Required the sex offender registries to be public, it amended the Jacob Wetterling Act to require public disclosure and notification

What is Registration when it comes to Megan’s Law?

Register personal information with law enforcement authorities

What is Notification when it comes to Megan’s Law?

Process by which public is informed of addresses and personal information

What is the Percentage of US adults with Criminal Records?

About one in three adults have some kind of criminal record.

What is General Research on SORN laws?

SORN laws may increase challenges during reintegration (e.g., securing housing, employment, victimization). But there is no strong evidence for the effect of SORN laws on recidivism

What is the Ex Post Facto clause and why does it fail?

It prohibits retroactive punishments, but it fails because it does not prevent all retroactive legislation since it only applies to punitive criminal laws, not civil laws

What is Political Context of Reforms?

The reform was largely bipartisan and pragmatic, centered on the growing focus on prisoner reentry in the mid 2000s. Rather than being driven mainly by ideology, reform efforts reflected a broader agreement that too many legal barriers were making successful reentry harder. Leaders from both parties supported this approach, including George W. Bush’s “Land of Second Chances” in 2004, Obama’s National reentry Week in 2016, and Trump’s declaration of Second Chance Month in 2018

What are the Five Main Areas of Reform?

Ban-the-box, bans on government benefits, Felon disenfranchisement, Occupational licensing, Criminal record clearance

What is Criminal Record Clearance?

A surge in legislation aimed at opportunities to expunge, seal, or set aside criminal records. Court petition is requires, and it is subject to prosecutorial review and judicial discretion

What is the Scale of Criminal Record Clearance?

There is relief for at least some felony convictions in 43 states, for many misdemeanors in 46, and for most nonconviction records in all 50

How many people who are eligible for relief receive it?

Only 10% of people who are eligible for relief receive it

What are the basics of Government Benefit Reforms?

Many states have removed or modified some collateral consequences from felony drug convictions, such as SNAP and TANF. Most restrictions on Federal student aid have been lifted or reduced

What are Problems with Ban-the-box?

It reduces employment prospects for one group, so its limited in its ability to have fair employment outcomes

What is the overall definition of systems-level reforms?

Evidence-based movement will result in little aggregate improvement unless it is accompanied by a comparable focus on systems-level reforms. Basically, someone needs to see the CJS as one organization and one system that we can evaluate as a whole

What are the contours of systems-level reforms?

1) Institutionalize research into policymaking and decision-making

2) Creating centralized oversight agency for coordinating and evaluating criminal justice

3) Ensuring continuous evaluation of system and subsystem performance and outcomes (table)

4) Relying on multiple outcomes to assess system and subsystem effectiveness

5) Using evaluation hierarchy to inform system and subsystem decision-making

6) Targeting inequality through systems reform

What is Mears (2022) Escaping the Sisyphean Trap?

There was an Ancient Greek king who offended the gods and was cursed to roll a boulder up a mountain, but as soon as he would get to the top it would roll back down